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<h3><a name="SECTION0022531000000000000000">
20.5.3.1 Command line usage</a>
</h3>

<p>
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
idle.py [-c command] [-d] [-e] [-s] [-t title] [arg] ...

-c command  run this command
-d          enable debugger
-e          edit mode; arguments are files to be edited
-s          run $IDLESTARTUP or $PYTHONSTARTUP first
-t title    set title of shell window
</pre></div>

<p>
If there are arguments:

<p>

<ol>
<li>If <b class="programopt">-e</b> is used, arguments are files opened for
        editing and <code>sys.argv</code> reflects the arguments passed to
        IDLE itself.

<p>
</li>
<li>Otherwise, if <b class="programopt">-c</b> is used, all arguments are
        placed in <code>sys.argv[1:...]</code>, with <code>sys.argv[0]</code> set
        to <code>'-c'</code>.

<p>
</li>
<li>Otherwise, if neither <b class="programopt">-e</b> nor <b class="programopt">-c</b> is
        used, the first argument is a script which is executed with
        the remaining arguments in <code>sys.argv[1:...]</code>  and
        <code>sys.argv[0]</code> set to the script name.  If the script name
        is '-', no script is executed but an interactive Python
        session is started; the arguments are still available in
        <code>sys.argv</code>.
</li>
</ol>

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<span class="release-info">Release 2.5.1, documentation updated on 18th April, 2007.</span>
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